


In the Little Glimmers

by fluffernutter8



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Kid Fic, Steggy Positivity Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: Parenthood is exhausting.





	In the Little Glimmers

“Remind me again why we decided to do this?”

Weeks together in European trenches and days strategizing in underground bunkers, and Steve’s never seen Peggy look so drained. She’s still beautiful, but lipstick and curled hair are a distant memory. He knows he won’t exactly be winning any beauty contests though; he thinks he took a shower recently, but wouldn’t swear that it was actually within the last forty-eight hours.

“Expanding our family,” Steve manages around a yawn. “Every child deserves a home.” Even serum enhanced, he’s so tired that his head decides to fall back against the headboard without his permission. He doesn’t know how Peggy’s still sitting upright. He tries to force himself to stay in the same position. Hana doesn’t like to be moved while she’s eating.

“So I suppose a well-meant donation won’t suffice?” she asks idly, shifting Tomi. He doesn’t mind the movement, but he’s heavier. They trade off holding each twin, Peggy deciding whether she’d prefer her arms stiff from sitting frozen, or from holding a sweet but substantial weight.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Steve agrees. Hana whines a little, trying to find the nipple that’s fallen out of her mouth, and he focuses on her for a moment. He really has no idea how they dealt with these two, plus more, at that place.

* * *

They’d been married five years before they’d even started talking about children. Steve’s aware that it’s not the normal way of things, but he’d loved those years of learning how to be married, finding how to balance work and their time together, figuring out how to fight without anyone getting a gun aimed at them, and how to forgive without grave danger involved. He’d loved getting to spend time just the two of them. Peggy had gotten her promotions, finally gotten at least some of the respect she was owed. And eventually, just around the time Steve had started looking at the kids in the art classes he taught and thinking about raising one of his own, she had brought it up.

By then, the rumors about her had moved away from her refusing to give up her career for the sake of a family, to the idea that perhaps she couldn’t have children. As far as they know, neither of them has any issues in that area, but while Peggy had been opening herself easily to the idea of a family greater than two, the idea of pregnancy totally lacked appeal.

He can no longer remember which of them had suggested adoption, but it seemed to fit them right away. There are men, men Steve knows, who think of adoption as a last resort or even an unthinkable decision. But in Steve’s experience, parents died or left to find work or lost their houses; children found new homes all the time. Maybe it wasn’t an adoption with courts or records or shared last names, but people built families and took care of children however they could, and Steve and Peggy could better than many.

The process had been months-long, and awful. They’d gone to agencies that had frowned on the idea that Peggy would be working and Steve planned to be the one at home. They’d been to places that refused to bring any but the plumpest little cherubs for Captain and Mrs. America, until Steve had politely excused them because those babies would be scooped up regardless. They’d been to an agency that Peggy’d had to bust for the worrisome ways they found their babies, and one orphanage they’d called the board of health on because a plant shouldn’t have been allowed there, much less a child.

And then one day they’d gotten a call from a Mrs. Jenkins. They’d met her weeks before at the Catholic children’s home she ran, but she hadn’t seemed particularly enthused about the two of them.

“Thank you for coming,” she said as they once again sat down in her office. “I had thought to call you because you had mentioned that you might be open to some rather...unconventional children. We recently started looking to place a pair of twins, born several weeks ago. Their mother survived the birth, but later developed an infection. Neighbors say that her husband had been killed in an accident during the pregnancy. No one has been able to find any family, and there’s been some trouble finding the appropriate home for the two of them.”

“Why?” Peggy asked. “Is it that difficult to find people willing to take in twins together?” She traded a very brief glance with Steve; they hadn’t really discussed more than one child at first.

“No, it’s not that.” Mrs. Jenkins stood evasively and walked to the door, indicating to someone outside. Another, younger woman in a crisp uniform came in pushing a wide baby carriage, and, without even asking, took two babies from inside, placing one in Steve’s arms and one in Peggy’s.

“You might know that the general policy is to place children with families of the same race,” said Mrs. Jenkins, wringing her hands. “But as you can see, we’re having a bit of trouble figuring out what these children are…”

“What the hell does that mean?” Steve asked immediately, looking up from the baby in his arms. He thought she was a girl, but knew he might be fooled by the minute delicacy of infant features. “They’re kids.”

Mrs. Jenkins cleared her throat. “Yes, well, it’s been difficult to tell their precise–” She cleared her throat again. “Their origins, if you understand my meaning.”

Steve did know what she meant, but he didn’t care. The baby looked up at him, and he felt nearly nauseated by the thought of her growing up refused a family because no one could tuck her into a category. Her fist closed sleepily around his finger and he found himself mesmerized by the contrast in their skin tones.

“Well, I know exactly who they are,” said Peggy. She looked away from the twin in her arms, and asked Mrs. Jenkins coolly, “I assume there is paperwork for us to complete?”

They’d been sent home together a few days later, along with all the personal effects delivered from the apartment and several pamphlets of advice.

Peggy had not planned to take time off, but it quickly became apparent that it would be more difficult than she’d anticipated. The babies might sleep a considerable amount of time, but they didn’t do it sequentially, refused the schedules the doctor kept mentioning, and generally seemed to be plotting to be as disruptive as possible. Hana was actually a decent sleeper on her own, but woke up as soon as Tomi opened his mouth to cry. Tomi would fall asleep halfway through a bottle, leaving Hana to take forever to find her way back. The whole thing was exhausting.

Steve honestly didn’t know how Peggy did it, sitting up for midnight feedings with him and then waking up for work in the morning, but she’d never seemed to regret their choice. They’d gotten the chance to look through the things that had belonged to their children’s birth parents, finding birth certificates with enough information to track down who those parents had been.

Aaron Brownley was a New York boy who had served with distinction in the 92nd infantry during the war and then found a job at a magazine. Aimi Ide had grown up in Seattle, been forced into Minidoka for several years, eventually come to Philadelphia for school, and then moved to New York to work as a food scientist. They’d been married two years and she was six months pregnant when he had been killed in an auto accident.

“Look,” Peggy had said, holding up a notebook with a list of baby names in two different sets of handwriting. “They were trying to come up with names that would have their children feeling comfortable no matter where they were.”

They’d already gotten looks in the street for having what some people perceived as the ideal nuclear family gone awry. And though Steve’s instinct was to swear to sock anyone who thought the wrong thing about his kids, he had wrapped an arm around her and just said, “We’ll do the best we can. We always do.”

* * *

“Seems like our best is being...tested,” Peggy murmurs, leaning herself carefully against Steve. She has work in five hours.

“I know.” He speaks carefully, glancing down at Hana, who’s lost her suction again. “But there are good things too. See?” He tilts his eyes down so she’ll follow his gaze.

She looks to Hana first, her wide, bright eyes and sweet way she’s looking up at them in the dim light. Then Tomi, sleepier and quietly snuffling, but just as lovely, looking right at her.

Babies, she’s found, give vague, vacant muscle movements that look like smiles during a range of activities: drooling, filling a diaper, finally dropping off the sleep. But this is the first time they’ve smiled precisely like this: purposefully, because they know her, they know them, because Steve and Peggy are their parents and they’ve made them happy.

 _Oh_ , she thinks. _Oh, my darlings._ She looks again at the twin smiles, each its own tiny, beautiful thing, a taste of years of future joy. She buries her own smile in Steve’s shoulder.

She gets a total of four hours sleep that night, and everyone goes after her the next day for smiling so much, but she can’t find it in herself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 3 of Steggy Positivity Week. Info about adoption, especially interracial adoption, in the fifties was mostly gained from the University of Oregon's Adoption History Project.


End file.
